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10 Jun 2014

Sony E3 Conference Round-Up

Live Conference Notes

- Start off with Destiny trailer featuring both CG and gameplay footage. Don't bother to introduce anyone before showing a game! Game looks amazing as always. It's clear Sony and Bungie have really got a rapport now if Destiny is head-lining the Sony conference. The game is insanely awesome! So much new gameplay footage, including a look at the backstory of Destiny. Destiny beta starts on July 17th for Playstation 4 owners! This Thursday, all PS4 owners can play Destiny for one day!
- Announcing a White Playstation 4 bundled with Destiny! White 500GB PS4, white Dualshock 4 controller, Destiny, PS+ voucher.
- The Order 1886 new gameplay footage! Game looks amazing as always, but this time it is set in a dark and moody setting. VERY moody and kind of creepy in a The Last of Us sense. Could this be the first time we see the mutants/vampires/zombies that were teased in the original CG trailer? Werewolves!
- Another game now, again no introduction. Looks beautiful with origami-style art. Looks very interesting and the music is great. It's the new game Entwined that Sony trade-marked a month or two ago! It is an indie game exclusive to Playstation 4. You control the two dragons at the same time, one with each analog stick, and you have to guide them through linear levels until they can come together at the end as lovers. The PS4 version is available right now for $10 USD! It is exclusive to Sony consoles - PS3, Vita, PS4.

- Stand-alone DLC for inFamous: Second Son ala Blood Night for inFamous 2. Snowy setting for this one. Looks like it is a story-based DLC where you play as Fetch, the conduit that you get the Neon powers from. Available 2014.
- Wow! Littlebigplanet 3 guys! Completely out of the blue! Looks like Littlebigplanet all right! This is an unbelievably massive announcement that NO ONE predicted....they flat out said they wouldn't be there! 4 player co-op session! Game looks great! Looks like unique characters aside from just Sackboy this time in terms of in-game abilities and traversal. PS4 exclusive. Cutting to a pre-rendered trailer now. Wow! Its' available November 2014! The crowd is going wild! Woah! Littlebigplanet 1 and 2 content is all available on Littlebigplanet 3 with the improved graphics engine!
- Bloodborne people! It's Bloodborne! This is the Project: Beast we saw! It's happening guys! Victorian-era setting by the looks of it. This is the next Souls game people! CG trailer so far, but it looks amazing! Very dark and disturbing as all the other Souls games. Coming 2015, exclusive to PS4!

- Now we have a Far Cry 4 demo! Visually looks great as always, gameplay looks fairly standard of Far Cry 3. The Crossbow weapon is nice. Hmm some fluid gameplay with strapping a bomb to a barrel and kicking it into a group of enemies apparently being completely unscripted. The music in this footage is awesome, as is the car-to-car hijacking. There are elephants causing havoc in this footage in a random encounter! Wow! An elephant just knocked over a jeep! This game looks awesome!
- Adam Boyes on the stage now, if you buy Far Cry 4 on PS3 or PS4 you can invite your friends to play multiplayer with you even if they don't own the game - only on Playstation!
- Deep Silver game up next, apparently a Zombie game. Looks like a CG trailer with a really humorous twist with the character running through a zombie apocalypse completely unperturbed and listening to his music. The character turned into a zombie and is still just running along. Ah, it's Dead Island 2! 30 day exclusive Playstation beta, exclusive Playstation DLC.
- Diablo 3 PS4 edition releasing on August 19th with Last of Us DLC content!

- Another Battlefield: Hardline trailer, mention of the prior announced PS4 early beta access. This is new gameplay footage we haven't seen before, it looks fantastic with more grappling hooks and explosive car chases. Still looks great!
- Disney Infinity 2.0 launching on PS4 and PS3, exclusive Hulk DLC.
- Destiny Playstation users get lots of exclusive content such as extra armours, maps, stand-alone co-op missions, weapons, etc (by the way, SOUND ISSUES!)
- Every Paradox Interactive studio is making a PS4 exclusive game. Humorous trailer. WHAT!? A cat just exploded on the screen! Magicka 2 is the game shown just then.
- Double Fine is remastering Grim Fandango in cooperation with Sony! Exclusive to PS4 and Vita! Wow! The crowd jumped at this one!
- A whole bunch of indie games making their console debut exclusively on Playstation consoles. Lots of great looking indie games, including a new Hotline: Miami.

- Suda 51 is making a Playstation 4 exclusive! Looks like a live-action trailer. Seems like a brutal murder game - here we go with some gameplay! Third person combat in an arena scale? It's called Let It Die. Looks neat and suitably like Manhunt.
- World premiere of the new game developed by the Journey makers. Underwater, sad music. Intriguing visuals with a human sailing among hundreds of sharks. Looks like an under-water adventure game with some awesome deep-sea locales. It's called ABZU by Giant Squid. Making its exclusive console debut on Playstation 4.
- Another game now making its console debut on Playstation 4, this looks really odd. Wait, could this be? Prehistoric setting? Very dark art style? Mix of real-world and pre-historic fauna, plus spaceships? Oh my.....space combat now.....oh my, it is. IT'S NO MANS SKY!!! WOW!
- It's Project Morpheus everyone! Project Morpheus is available for demoing at E3.
- Youtube functionality/full support coming to PS4 this year; you can now use the Share button to upload to Youtube. Only on PS4, you can now interact with a person's Twitch/Ustream live stream. Free DLC for the Playroom.

- 25 Free to Play games coming to PS4 including Planetside 2, War Thunder and Guns Up. Also, was that Team Fortress 2?
- Playstation Now being talked about, starting with PS3 games. July 31st is the open beta for Playstation Now in North America and Canada for PS4. Playstation Now coming to select Sony televisions; grab a Dualshock 3 and you can play games on the service.
- Over 100 PS Vita games in development, including Child of Light and Tales from the Borderlands. Minecraft coming to Vita as a full game with co-op.
- In Fall, the Playstation TV is coming to North America, Canada and Europe (previously exclusive to Japan). Disney Infinity 2.0 coming to PS VITA and PS TV next year. Playstation TV is $99 USD.
- Mortal Kombat X gameplay footage! Visually looks amazing!
- Some TV stuff....boring. This better not be what closes the show. Damnit Sony, why!?
- Now we are having a look at Ratchet and Clank: The Movie. There's going to be a Remastering of the original Ratchet and Clank for PS4, both the movie and the game will be available for PS4 in the first half of the year.

- The Last of Us: Remastered folks! Wow, does it look beautiful. Release date is July 29 2014 everyone!
- Sony are introducing Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain now! It's the full trailer that was partially leaked last night. It's a great trailer, but we kind of have already seen it - something Andrew House made light of!
- Another new game, what is this? OH WOW! It's Grand Theft Auto 5 everyone! Fall 2014 on Playstation 4 - it won't be exclusive I assume. PS3/360 players can transfer their GTA Online and GTA 5 single-player progress and characters to the PS4 (and probably Xbox One) version.
- Batman Arkham Knight folks! Wait, is it? OH MY GOD! IT'S IN-GAME FOOTAGE! Holy hell does this game look absolutely stunning! Wow, Batman just landed after gliding for an extended period and immediately jumped into a remote controlled Batmobile! Woah! Batmobile combat and it is SICK! Woah! A Scarecrow Sequence at the damned show! Exclusive Scarecrow Nightmare missions exclusive to PS4.
- One last title! Is it Uncharted 4 or The Last Guardian? IT'S UNCHARTED 4! It looks amazing! Seems like pre-rendered footage but it is hard to tell. The official title is Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Coming 2015!

Overall Thoughts - Sony started really strong with great looking game after great looking game culminating in a shock with Littlebigplanet 3, but after that the conference just stagnated soon after that with a painfully boring and long "Beasts" TV show discussion. Thankfully they had the common sense to end the conference with five games and an announcement of another. Sadly, the show was plagued by sound issues throughout and some of the presenters did a poor job. Still, overall, I would rate it around the same as Microsoft's right now because of the amazing games shown and the greater focus on gameplay footage over CG trailers.

5 comments:

Mr. Eel, I know this isn't video game related, but could you help me please? When I play my imperial Guard army I always put my Company command and platoon command squads in chimeras to help with durability, is this feasible? And what weapons should I take for theses squads? Should I take astropaths in my command units for the warp points they generate? Are Baneblades/shadowswords competitive, and what should I take on them? Is there a way to buff the space marine's low psychic strength? and also what would be a good way to mix space marines and guardsmen armies, playing to the guard's big guns and high numbers and the space marine's strengths at the same time?

Thanks in advance for your kind help.

btw: thx for the E3 article, I wasn't able to ctach it this time 'round.

I'll try and separate each question so this reply is easier to read :)

1) Putting Company and Platoon Command Squads in Chimeras is certainly feasible to make the most of their high special weapon counts, but specifically I would take meltaguns on the Ballistic Skill 4 Company Command Squads and pair them up with Mech Veterans armed with meltas or plasmas. The Ballistic Skill 3 Platoon Command Squad is often better suited to jumping out of a Vendetta with lots of flamers as hitting on 4s with plasma and melta guns isn't that great. However, they still work fine in a Chimera as a mobile Order machine.

2) Astropaths are really good value in the new edition because they get you two Telepathy powers (Psychic Focus) and a warp charge point all for 25 points. Now that psychic tests aren't Leadership tests Astropaths sky-rocketed into competitive usage.

3) I tend not to review the Lords of War as my area doesn't play Escalation often enough for me to really get to grips with them, but from my experience both are competitive enough though the Shadowsword might win out because it has a Destroyer weapon. I think they are both solid for the points but I definitely wouldn't put them in the same class as an Eldar Revenant Titan. The sponsons are worthwhile while the Commisariat Crews are easily worth their points to make nearby Astra Militarum units Leadership 10; it saves you points on a Lord Commissar!

4) If you are worried about psychic strength with Space Marines, Tigurius at least is mandatory either as part of the primary or an allied detachment. Grey Knights and Astra Militarum are both Battle Brothers with Space Marines, so using either of them for lots of cheap warp charge points is ideal if Tigurius and a Level 2 Librarian aren't enough.

5) In the new rules - particularly Maelstrom of War missions - Space Marines in either Drop Pods or Rhinos (the former especially) are insanely good value. I would prefer Drop Pods mostly but if you have a mechanized list then Rhinos might be better for target saturation. Ideally, the Astra Militarum are your "gunline" and demolish the enemy while the Space Marines are your objective-takers in Drop Pods/Rhinos. They work very well together as Space Marines do provide tough all-rounders with Objective Secured which Astra Militarum don't get.

I'm looking forward to the next Mortal Combat game! I'm wondering if Neatherrealm Studios is going to add an exclusive character in both PS4 and Xbox One, like Kratos was in MK9. My guess is either having the main character from Infamous: Second Son or Kratos again would be my pick, while a character like Jago or Fulgore from Killer Instict could also be the guest stars, in their own respect.

That would make sense and would be very interesting, though I wouldn't be surprised if they they put in a Halo character on the Xbox version either. I was surprised at the amount of gore they got to show off in the trailer considering Sony were showing their conference in cinemas across the USA!